Since posting an open letter (email, in fact) yesterday, I have been trawling my way through threads of comments on largely followed Facebook pages concerning the migrant crisis.

Since I was quick to infer that Bucklitsch does not provide a voice for the masses, I thought I would be greeted by heartwarming humanitarianism; words invoking altruism and care. How wrong I was; some of the comments on these threads boiled my blood, pushing me to share yet another opinionated blog. Sorry.

So, Save the Children shared the following sponsored Facebook post: “Refugee children are fleeing bombs, bullets and torture in warzones like Syria, only to drown in European waters. We must stand together to stop this: donate now.”, followed by a link to donate and an image of a child crying, face in hands.

The responses were repulsively bigoted, and had very little humanity to be extrapolated. Here are some examples of these comments.

So out of these comments, one of them commented on the bigotry of the overall thread (Kudos to you, Cat Hepple!). A few others commented on the charity’s processes of providing aid, and others on the earnings of the charity’s CEO. Overall, however, there is an overwhelming level of hate and anger towards the poor souls fleeing from war-torn Syria.

This made me question: Was the outrage against Peter Bucklitsch really as overwhelming as I originally thought? Or were people scared to voice their support for him on the mostly-Liberal platform of Twitter? Or even, did those who support this side of the debate not see the tweet? Who knows.

Either way, I almost feel some kind of pity for Bucklitsch; he was voicing these opinions on a soapbox provided by an already-sneered-at political party. I feel as though this kind of opinion hides, cowardly, until they can strike on a large thread of comments and go nigh undetected. Or, wait until surrounded by those who agree with their opinion, and engage in groupthink tactics. Before I go on, I do not feel pity for Bucklitsch for his word choices, or even for his opinion being the opposite of mine. (His subsequent apology suggests he was sorry for himself, and not for those suffering, anyway!) I feel pity for him for being framed as the solo voice of disgust towards the migrant crisis. Maddeningly, and sadly, he is not. Those who support him are just not as vocal as he is.

These folk posting these comments are truly angry and hateful towards the migrants and the Muslim community. They do not feel any empathy, nor do they want them in ‘our’ country. Stick yourselves in these migrants’ shoes, you angry little humans. These migrants are angry little humans too – they too feel they are suffering through no doing of their own! The anger they feel, however, is not one borne of the want to protect what they already have. Instead, their anger comes from the loss of loved ones; the stigma attached to being a migrant; the war they have no part in pushing them out of their own homes. If you found yourself in that position, would you flee, and find your family a better life? Yes. You bloody well would.

The people who are so keen to support closed borders often pull out the WW2 card. Let me argue, that if these kind of bigoted opinions circulated in the 1940s, we would never have risen against Fascism. The hundreds of thousands of Jews that the UK took in as refugees, fleeing the persecution of Nazis, were all in a similar state of terror as the Syrian migrants.

Peter Bucklitsch may not be such a rogue voice afterall. Maybe he has the guts to share his opinions more widely, and several people with public platforms available to them are not as willing to share their similar views; we don’t know. I believe that after seeing these comments on Facebook, maybe the cries for humanitarian aid are louder than the sickeningly dangerous rhetoric, simmering away in the background. I am concerned for the atmosphere the migrants will face once they reach safety in Europe.